Planning for a Preservation Assessment of the University Archives

FAIN: PG-50541-09

Elizabeth City State University (Elizabeth City, NC 27909-9913)
Juanita Midgette-Spence (Project Director: May 2008 to October 2010)

A general preservation assessment of the university's 2,000 linear feet of collections documenting one of the nation's oldest black colleges and its contribution to the education of black Americans.

The University Archives houses a rich collection of institutional records and historical publications, photographs, and artifacts which date back to the University's founding as Elizabeth City Colored Normal School in 1891. ECSU's proposed project consists of hiring a preservation expert to assess the conditions in our archival storage spaces and make recommendations for future allocation of resources. We also propose to purchase three environmental data recorders and a small number of acid-free supplies to begin our work. The University's archival collection is important because the way in which black students were educated in America over the past 125 years has been conjoined with our nation's history, literature, and all cultural aspects of the human experience. ECSU's collections strikingly reflect the methods that 19th, twentieth, and twenty-first century educators employed as they sent black teachers and other humanities graduates into the world.